BP, Big Government and Crony Capitalism

Transcript

David Asman: White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel made it clear over the weekend that he’s going to try to sell the voters on the idea that Republicans are actually responsible in large part for the oil spill. He even targeted the son of our next guest as one of those who’s in his sights.

Rahm Emanuel: Rand Paul, running for Senate in Kentucky. What did he say? He said the way BP was being treated was un-American. Other members of the Republican leadership have come to the defense of BP and attacked the administration.

David Asman: Joining us now from Washington, the father of Rand Paul, Republican Congressman Ron Paul. Well, there they go again, beating up on your son. How does that make you feel?

Ron Paul: It’s part of politics and people who are insecure have to go and attack somebody else and make up stories. I have no idea what Rand said or what they’re talking about. But that’s the way, I guess, the game is played.

David Asman: The irony, Congressman Paul, is that you and Rand have been very critical of all of the benefits that BP has been getting in their relationship with working with the government, and specifically with the Obama administration.

Ron Paul: Yeah, BP is a big government corporation and they’re in bed with government. We provide a lot of protection for their oil rigs in the Middle East. And, of course, they’re for Cap and Trade.

David Asman: That’s right.

Ron Paul: I think this whole thing about setting up this fund satisfies both the politicians and BP because they’ve agreed to this and this sort of is a PR stunt as far as I’m concerned. BP hah already been making a lot of payments to people who have been injured. My point is…

David Asman: Hold on. Before you go any further let me just ask, because a lot of people would say, “Wait a minute, 20 billion dollar payout, that doesn’t sound like much of a benefit for BP.” How does that benefit BP to have this fund?

Ron Paul: Well, they have to pay, everybody knows that, and I think they know that, too. So they might as well concede to this. But I don’t think BP is being a good example of the free enterprise system. You know, I think that they’re very much in tune with big government, and here the process is sort of suspicious. Under what law have they done this? There’s not even an executive order, not even a congressional approval, and here they’re dealing with 20 billion dollars. I think they should pay 100 billion dollars if there are a 100 billion dollars worth of damage.

David Asman: They should pay… by the way, isn’t there an actual provision in this supplemental bill that they’re trying to push through Congress, a 100 billion dollars, or whatever it is now, to force some of the cleanup that BP should be paying? Aren’t they forcing some of the costs of this on tax payers instead of BP?

Ron Paul: That’s right. And that’s exactly the opposite of what it should be. It should be the corporation that did the damage that should pay for this. So I just don’t like the process; I think they should pay and there are legal ways of doing this. But I’m very suspicious of how this has come about. And this whole idea that somebody defends the rule of law and says that you shouldn’t beat up on a corporation and drive them into bankruptcy, yeah, they should be dealt with in a legal fashion and hopefully they don’t go bankrupt. Fortunately, they are a wealthy company.

So they should pay the bills and I think they’re capable of doing this. But this whole idea that you have to close down all oil wells in the Gulf, and that means it will hurt BP even more plus all the oil companies, plus all the people who now are going to lose their jobs in addition. And this is absurd to say that because Obama issues an order, closes down all the other oil rigs, that they make BP pay for that damage. They have enough to pay for.

David Asman: Well, they do, although again, they are forcing some of that on taxpayers by putting it in the bill because of their cozy relationship with the administration. If Cap and Trade passes, because they’re the largest producer of natural gas in this country, they could benefit many times over what they’re paying out in that 20 billion dollar funds through Cap and Trade, right?

Ron Paul: Oh yeah. And I’ve heard talk, and we don’t know exactly what the tax ramifications will be. Maybe they’ll essentially get all their money off their taxes or something. Maybe they’ll consider this a donation or who knows what. But I suspect there is a lot about the agreement that we don’t know about and probably will never know about. Somebody asked me what did I think about the conversation they might have had. Well, I can’t characterize it, I wasn’t there, I’d like to see the transcript. What do you think the odds are that we’ll get to audit that transcript? I don’t think we will.

David Asman: Probably not. It would probably be easier to get the minutes from the Federal Reserve board, as you well know.

Ron Paul: Yeah, find out what they’re doing.

David Asman: Final, very quick question: next time Rahm Emmanuel starts pointing his fingers at you and your son as being friends of BP, why don’t you just point it right back and say, “You are the guys who were more friendly than we are?”

Ron Paul: Well, I think that’s a perfectly good answer, and that’s one thing that I’ve been fighting against for a long time.

David Asman: You certainly have.

Ron Paul: And I think you essentially agree with me on this that the partnership between big business and big government is not capitalism.

David Asman: That’s right.

That’s crony capitalism or, you know, interventionism of the Keynesian type, which I strongly disapprove of.

David Asman: We do as well. Ron Paul, good to see you, thank you very much for being here.

59 Comments:

I've heard that before this happened when obama opened up the gulf bp competitors moved in their rigs at huge costs and now that the moratorium has came down they will have to either let those rigs sit around intill they open it back up or move them again to who knows were at who knows what cost to those companies

We free marketeers(assuming you are one too) should be careful and try to educate as many of these fox watching folks as possible before they try to stab us in the back and start promoting facists of the george bush, sarah palin type again.

Hey, I'm just happy that Fox is allowing people to talk about the Constitution and limited gov't while exposing the Progressives and Unions for the racist collectivist socialists they really are. Fox is the ONLY one and they are getting high ratings in doing so! People are paying attention to the Constitution again and Fox has something to do with it so I say GO FOX!

Not that FOX has ever cared about corporatism either. I think they're only playing to the common people now that republicans are out of power. If republicans were in charge, they'd be all about big government, and they were.

here's the funny think Mcain wanted to have gulf drilling as well. Both sides of the fence are looking and playing politics, which isn't helping anyone. Fox is doing what fox does best divide and concur. Don't fall for this trick folks. Unfortunately Ron is playing the game with Fox. Less then 2 years ago Fox played Ron Paul as a crazy old man, now look, they love him. Keep your eyes open folks and don't fall for the tricks.

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